Tennessee baseball and Arkansas are set to begin a best-of-three series on Saturday for a spot in the 2025 Men's College World Series.
Before the Fayetteville Super Regional gets underway, Razorbacks head coach Dave Van Horn met with the media.
Here's what he said on the matchup.
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Opening statement
"Welcome to Fayetteville. Just excited to be playing. What a great matchup this should be. I think after tomorrow morning, the weather is supposed to be great so it should be an exciting weekend."
On drowning out outside noise, addressing it with the team
"Talked a lot about it last week. And then after the game, we talked about it as a staff and then talked about it with the team. Each practice, maybe just a little bit. Maybe mention it again today, make sure you've got everything taken care of so you can sleep good and you're not worrying about this or that. Just focusing on the game and not what people are saying."
On if this feels different than past SEC-only super regionals due to just playing UT
"It feels a little different because we just played them in the last series of the regular season. It's just a weekend. It comes down to one weekend; that's the way we look at it. We just got to take care of our business."
On his pitching rotation this weekend
"Well, we're going to go with (Zach) Root tomorrow."
On Tennessee Director of Recruiting Operations Luke Bonfield returning to his alma mater
"As a player, Luke broke his ankle in the fall of his freshman year. It really slowed him up. Good hitter, I think the ankle bothered him for a while. Became a better position player later. He just always seemed to be in the middle of it with us offensively. He was a guy, too, that later in his career he was talking about coaching and wanting to coach. I felt like he was going to stay in it."
On the plan for pitcher Gage Wood
"Whatever we need to do with him... We have, as of now, he's going to be a starter. You just never know when you get to a series like this how you're going to do it."
On pitchers getting an extra day of rest with the series starting on Saturday
"That's fine with us. We didn't care either way, but it's probably a good thing. Probably for both teams, honestly."
On playing a regional against three new teams then having a rematch
"You don't have to game plan as much. You kind of know what they're all about. You've been following them, played them, saw them play a game in the (SEC) Tournament. You might change a couple things up, but you don't have to just dissect the whole thing because we've already done that."
On if he wants to be aggressive on the bases against Marcus Phillips
"Our thing is, we're just going to do what we need to do and let the game tell us what we need to do. Their catchers throw good, they have good arms. We don't want to run ourselves out of innings. We'll do what we need to do at that time depending on the score and what we've been seeing."
On hitting Liam Doyle well last time they played, Doyle bouncing back in the regional
"It was pretty gutsy on his part. I thought he just wanted the ball, wanted to help his team win. He threw really good two or three days before that. He's a really good pitcher. He's won a lot of games. Leads the country in strikeouts. We'll worry about him when we get to him."
On how pleased he is of his pitching staff developing to this point
"We've talked throughout the season, we talked about it in the fall, that we've got to try to keep our guys obviously healthy and not wear them out when it comes to the end of the season because that's the most important part. I think for the most part, we've done a pretty good job with it. We have some depth in the bullpen so we've been able to spread it out. I think we really didn't over-pitch our pitchers on the weekends as far as pitch counts, especially early, we'd always tell them we're saving that inning for later. They were always like I can go one more. I'm at 80 pitches, I can go 100, hopefully it'll help."
On if he's talked about the ball possibly carrying more because the game is being played during the day
"Right now, it's really all about the wind when you're talking about the ball carrying. The wind is going to blow out. It's been blowing in all week with all this heat and the south, south-west winds. Now, you're going to change over to west or north-west or whatever. It's going to be jumpy. It is what it is."
On the recent offensive surge, approach
"Last weekend, we had a great approach. Up and down the lineup, it's not like you get through six hitters and it falls apart and you can't wait to get back to the top. The end lineup did a great job for us, middle, top. It might not be every time or every inning, but there's always a chance. They've all done their part and they've all helped out. I've liked the consistency of that. We played the other game too and played some small ball here and there. We run a little bit here and there. We don't just sit around and wait to hit three-run homers. Those are nice, but sometimes the weather is not in your favor for that. You've got to be able to do some other things and I think we've been able to."
On if he's mulling over lineups, being at batting practice
"Not for starting at this time. We don't have guys that flip-flop off and on, so to speak. I stand because I like to watch the swings from out there. I like to work with the base runners and talk to them at second and third base. I do really watch BP. There's been times, when we played at Florida State I think in '09, when out of the blue I put Andrew Darr in the lineup because all he did in BP in the last group was hit line drives and hit it hard. In the last game, he was hitting in the nine-hole and he got the double that walked them off the field as our DH and he also went 5-for-5 in the game. He had kind of earned that with what he had done with his batting practice. I think I hit him a little bit in the regional, as well. We don't have that issue. Our lineup has been pretty set. We're not platooning a DH or position players. We've just been going with who has been doing it. We have left-handed hitters who have hit lefties fine and vice versa so we just let it go."
On teams meeting for a second time in a season, offense or pitching having an upper hand
"It could be either way. I think bottom line it's what your players do. Are your hitters locked in, swinging at strikes? Pitchers throwing strikes and doing what they do? I think it gives coaching staffs an opportunity to maybe see more of what might get them out or what won't and then we've got to use it. Really, it comes down to the players. They've just got to do what they do."
On Tennessee hitting Zach Root well last game, his last outings
"Last outing was amazing. That game, and then I think you're probably talking about the (SEC) Tournament, just didn't locate it. Second time through the lineup, they got him a little bit. I think it was more about his location than anything. He didn't have a really good breaking ball that day and he's been having that lately. You never know how it's going to go, that's why you play. But, it's a really good lineup he's going to have to try to maneuver through. It's a good mix of left and right-handed hitters. Power hitters, guys that will fight you, guys that can run. Every pitch is important."
On his experience with and against Tony Vitello
"To me, the game is the game, whether you're in season. It was very important. We needed to win that series big time a few weeks ago. I think they felt the same way. As far as competing, he's really a big-time competitor. He likes to compete at everything he does. Whether it's shooting baskets, free throws, it doesn't matter. He's competing. He grew up that way. His dad's a high school coach. As a young kid, he was always with his dad's teams. All the way to juco to Missouri, playing. And then, in his coaching career, he's very competitive on the recruiting trail and everything else. That's what it takes to have success at this level."
On handling 'delay-tactics' that Tennessee uses
"I don't really think it's any different than some other teams. It doesn't really stand out to me that there's a lot of delay things going on. I think what I just tell our teams every weekend, just do what we do. Don't get distracted. Don't let the other stuff get in the way of being focused on your batter, your pitch or making a play. Easier said than done, but I don't have any problems with anything."
On infielder Brent Iredale's recent at-bats
"You never know how it's going to go like I said a couple times. His bat seems to be better. He's taking his walks, he's still getting hit by pitches. His on-base percentage is up there. He's been so close on some pitchers where he flew out to the fence. Thinking he just missed it. Just need him to get one of those and at a big time. We feel like he's swinging the bat a lot better than he did maybe two weeks ago."
On if there's a benefit to some pitchers not pitching much recently
"They threw an inning to some of our hitters. When I say an inning, they went out maybe Wednesday and threw 15 pitches. Or we told them to get two hitters out, if it takes five pitchers, whatever. They got loose, came on the field and did it. Try to simulate a little bit. Also try to get some of our guys that haven't had some at-bats in a while an opportunity to hit some live pitching."
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